Being a Green Mother by Piers Anthony Read Free Book Online Page A

the border between Spain and France, speaking their own language. Orb made no progress here, speaking none of the three tongues. She knew the Gypsies were here, but they were hidden from her, keeping their nature secret.
    She refused to give up. She rented a room in a village house and went out daily to talk with the people, asking about the Gypsies. No one professed to know anything about them.
    Finally she became desperate. She went to the center of the village square, brought out her harp, and began to play. In a moment people appeared, listening, as she had known they would. No true Gypsy could remain aloof from magic music, and hers was special. Soon virtually all the village was present, the folk standing in a great circle around her.
    She stopped, put away her harp, and walked though the crowd, back to her room.
    It was not long before there was a knock on her door. Orb answered, hoping that her ploy had been successful.
    A dark urchin stood there, dressed in bright rags. “Nicolai bids you come,” the child said.
    This smelled like victory. Orb did not question the message; she wrapped her cloak about her and stepped out.
    “With your music,” the child added.
    Orb smiled. She fetched her harp, then accompanied the child out and down the street, to a hidden hovel fashioned from refuse. She was appalled to think that anyone should live in a place like this, but so it was.
    Inside was an old man. She knew immediately that he wasa Gypsy; his whole appearance and manner spoke of it. He sat on a decrepit wooden chair and held an ancient fiddle.
    The man stared at her for a long moment. At last he spoke. “Teach my child your music,” he said.
    Startled, Orb glanced around for the urchin, but the urchin was gone. “I can not do that,” she protested. “I only want to know—”
    Nicolai stilled her with an impatient gesture. “Tinka!” he called.
    A buxom young woman appeared, her dark hair bound under a colorful kerchief. This was evidently his daughter.
    But there was something odd about the way Tinka looked about. Her gaze was random, her eyes not focusing. Orb realized that the girl was blind.
    Nicolai lifted his fiddle and played. The hut seemed suddenly to come alive, animated by his evocative music. It was as if the walls became transparent, and the world outside was tinged with gold. The instrument sang of wonders barely beyond vision.
    Abruptly he stopped. “But Tinka—see,” he said. He reached out and took his daughter’s left hand and brought it up. She looked away, but did not resist.
    Orb gasped. The hand was shorn of the ends of all its fingers. Only the first joints after the knuckles remained, and the thumb. The girl had suffered some terrible accident in childhood.
    “She cannot play,” the man said gruffly. “She cannot dance.” He glanced down at the girl’s feet, and Orb saw that they were twisted. “Fifteen, and unmarried, and no children. Yet she is comely. Teach her your music.”
    “But—” Orb did not know how to get hold of this situation. “I—what I do, it can’t be taught—”
    “Take her hand,” Nicolai said.
    Fighting against her own repulsion, Orb reached out and took Tinka’s mutilated hand. As she touched it, she heard a faint sound, as of a distant orchestra.
    Tinka had the magic!
    “I can’t teach her,” Nicolai said. “My music is all in my fiddle. But you can.”
    Sorrow, sympathy, and surmise played through Orb’s emotion. “Perhaps I can,” she agreed.
    “Take her,” he said.
    Numbed by this prospect, Orb obeyed. She led the girl by the hand from the hut, and out to the street.
    People were all around, but they went about their business with studied unconcern. No one seemed to look directly at Orb as she led Tinka to her apartment, yet all were aware.
    Orb had sought the Llano. Instead she had found a student. Somehow she knew that this was her rite of passage. If she taught the girl, the Gypsies would cooperate.
    Tinka was shy, volunteering